Unravelling the mysteries of MDS

All cancers have some epigenetic component, but myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) are the only diseases in which hypomethylating agents have had significant clinical activity. Colon cancer, for example has as much methylation as MDS but is resistant to these agents. Why that should be remains a mystery.

At the European Cancer Congress in Vienna (September 2015), Guillermo Garcia-Manero (MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas) presented research into this and other difficult questions in MDS. In this EJC News Focus, he tells Helen Saul that the eventual answers could have implications in a wide range of cancers.